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Dessert

Very Rich Rice Meringue Pudding

A thick rice pudding finished with a sweet meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Very Rich Rice Meringue Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the rice

  1. Boil the rice in the milk for three hours until thick.

  2. Sweeten and flavor to taste.

  3. Let it cool.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Beat in the egg yolks and butter until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  3. Spread jam or jelly over the cooled mixture.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until light.

  2. Gradually add fine sugar until thick.

  3. Flavor with almond extract.

  4. Spread over the pudding.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

  6. Serve with sweet cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rice
Starch that softens and thickens into a creamy body during long simmering in milk.
Milk
Liquid that cooks with the rice to form the pudding's creamy base.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the pudding as they set with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets and browns to form the meringue topping.
Fine sugar
Stabilizes the whipped whites and sweetens the meringue.

The step that matters

Gradually add fine sugar until thick. Adding sugar slowly to beaten whites helps it dissolve and stabilizes the foam. Adding it too fast or to underbeaten whites can leave a loose meringue that weeps or does not hold its shape.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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